ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — At least 11 Kurdish women activists arrested over the past year remain imprisoned and detained in Iran as the world marks International Women’s Day, human rights watchdogs said on Monday.
At least 33 Kurdish women activists have been detained by Iranian security forces since March 8 last year, according to data provided by the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) on Monday, most detained for political activities, in addition to civil activities and opposition to compulsory hijab laws. Eleven of the women remain in prison, KHRN added.
The Hengaw Organization for Human Rights published the same figures, adding that that Iran’s judiciary has sentenced 11 of them to imprisonment and flogging.
International Women’s Day celebrations are officially prohibited in Iran, yet activists use the occasion to highlight the persecution of women in the Islamic Republic, including gender-based violence, self-immolation, honor killings, and inequality.
This comes after Iranian state media, IRNA, on Monday criticized the west for “double standards” of violence and discrimination against women following a UN report emphasizing on the advances in women’s rights.
Among those imprisoned is Zeynab Jalalian, detained in 2008. She was initially sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in Kermanshah for “enmity against God,” her sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in 2011 by the court of appeal.
Amnesty International, in a report published early February, said Iranian authorities are torturing the chronically ill Kurdish political prisoner by denying her healthcare to coerce her into providing a videotaped confession.
In the same report published by KHRN, at least 94 cases of suicide among women were recorded in the past year, 32 of which were of teenagers. At least 18 were murdered by their family members and husbands for different reasons, seven of which were specified to be honour killings.
